His day—a day for remembrance for memory's fondest object, the cross of Christ, where He endured the fire of God's judgment against sin, and my sins, and where He accomplished what was contained in His words to Peter (John 18:1111Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? (John 18:11))—"The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?"
"God could not pass the sinner by,
His sin demands that he must die;
But in the cross of Christ we see
How God can save, yet righteous be.
The sin alights on Jesus' head,
'Tis in His blood sin's debt is paid."
How wonderful to know that your debt and mine, sin's debt, was paid in His blood! The life that we had forfeited and could only give up through our death, and with judgment still to come, was offered to God for us by His own beloved Son who also bore the judgment for us and freed us from its everlasting destruction from the Lord. But at what a cost! Our redemption was not only accomplished by His death, but had its very source and spring in His own heart's sorrow, and in such anguish of soul as never endured by man before. Is that not what makes our redemption so precious to us?
Deep in unfathomable mines of anguish and sorrow—there is the groundwork of all your glory and mine. What transcends my apprehension (not only my thoughts) is that He laid down a spotless life (holy, undefiled), but with sin attached to it—my sin and yours! And He died under the full sense of it, in the fullest consciousness of the forsaking of God in the bearing of sin, and for sin. How deep the sorrow—thus we sing. Yes, how deep were those unfathomable mines of sorrow and anguish! "The travail of His soul" is the way the prophet speaks of it, and out of it were you and I brought into blessing.